Aldermere Group: Content Model & Structured Content Design
Contents
Aldermere Group is a constructed worked example, built to demonstrate senior content strategy practice end-to-end across a composable CMS transformation. The client name and engagement specifics are fictitious. The content modelling methodology, field-level specifications, and every analytical decision described here are drawn from real engagements across enterprise content strategy, composable CMS builds, and structured content design.
The brief
The content model is the architectural foundation of a composable transformation. Everything else sits on top of it: the editor experience, the channel publishing logic, the personalisation capability, the AI applications. Getting it wrong is expensive to fix. Getting it right requires holding the editorial model, the user model, the technical model, and the business model at the same time.
For Aldermere Group, an enterprise retail and lifestyle group running four sub-brands across ten markets and approximately thirty digital properties, the target was Contentful as a unified composable content layer. One shared content layer feeding all brands and markets via API, with brand and market context applied at the presentation layer. The content model was the contract between editorial intent, the CMS, and every channel consuming the content.
The architectural principle
The single most consequential decision made before any field was specified: brand and market are reference fields on content, not duplicated copies of content.
The audit had found sub-brands B and C using different field names for equivalent concepts. The legacy instinct would have been to model a Sub-brand A Article and a Sub-brand B Article as separate types. That approach reproduces the fragmentation it is trying to solve: every change to the editorial standard has to be made in four places, every new channel requires four implementations, every governance decision has to be enforced four times.
The Aldermere model takes the opposite approach. One Article type. Brand and market as reference fields. Context is applied at the surface layer. Content is modelled once and composed differently per brand, market, and channel. This is the composable content discipline applied at the entity level, not just at the component level.
The model is the contract between editorial intent, the CMS, and every channel that consumes the content. Everything downstream depends on getting this right.
The six content types
Six content types were fully specified across the engagement. Each type has a defined purpose, lifecycle, ownership, channel scope, full field-level specification with validation rules and editor guidance, relationship map, taxonomy attachments, and reuse patterns across surfaces.
Every type is designed as a channel-agnostic structured entity, not as a template for a specific surface. An Article does not know whether it will be consumed by the web frontend, the mobile app, an AI agent answering a product query, or a partner integration. The model's job is to make the content available in a structured form that any consumer can work with.
The component library
Ten reusable components were modelled separately from the content types and composed by them. Modelling the Component Library as a separate set rather than embedding components per type was itself a significant decision (D-08): one Hero component used by Article, Product, Event, and Campaign behaves consistently across surfaces and is maintained once.
The ten components cover the primary structural needs of the estate: Hero, Card grid, Callout, FAQ block, Testimonial, Related content, Image with caption, Spec table, Quote, and Embed. Each component is specified with fields, validation rules, content type usage, and design system token references. Components are available inside rich text body fields as structured blocks, replacing the free HTML field approach that had produced inconsistent rendering across the legacy estate.
Design note: The Component Library is the structural half of the composable system. The content types are the editorial half. Neither works without the other. The model specifies both together.
The modelling decisions log
The decisions log is the artefact that most directly demonstrates senior practice. Any experienced content modeller can produce field names. What distinguishes senior work is the documented reasoning: what alternatives were considered, why each was rejected, and what trade-offs were accepted in the decision that was made.
Ten significant decisions were logged across the engagement. Six of the most consequential are shown below:
The full decisions log is in the content model workbook, covering all ten decisions with alternatives, rationale, trade-offs, dates, and decision-makers. The log is the artefact that makes the model reviewable as a strategic document, not just as a configuration specification. It is also the primary protection against model drift: when the reasoning is documented, future teams understand why a decision was made and can assess whether the original constraints still apply before changing it.
Field-level discipline
Each content type sheet specifies every field at the level of: field name, type (short text, rich text, reference, taxonomy, date, choice, asset), required status, validation rules, editor helper text, and implementation notes.
Two examples that illustrate the depth:
Article: title field
Type: Short text. Required. Max 80 characters, no trailing punctuation. Helper text: 'Write for the reader, not for SEO. Plain language preferred over puns.' Implementation note: used as page title, social preview title, and email subject preview. The constraint is not arbitrary; it reflects the multi-surface consumption of the field.
Product: sustainability attributes field
Type: Taxonomy reference (multi). Optional. Certified attributes only, drawn from the Sustainability taxonomy. Helper text: 'Do not claim attributes informally.' Implementation note: heavily regulated; validation against the certification register before publish. This field exists as a structured taxonomy reference rather than freeform copy specifically because the EU Green Claims Directive requires claims to be specific, accurate, and substantiated. A freeform text block cannot be machine-read for verification. A structured taxonomy reference can.
The field is not the deliverable. The reasoning behind the field is the deliverable.
What the workbook contains
The content model workbook runs to eleven sheets:
Method: the README, modelling principles, engagement context, and how the workbook is organised
Model Overview: the architectural principle, types in scope, brand and market context model, top-level relationships
Content Type Index: single-table navigation view of all six types with status, scope, channels, and ownership
Article, Product, Person, Location, Event, Campaign: one sheet per type with full field specification, relationships, taxonomy attachments, and reuse patterns
Component Library: ten components with fields, content type usage, and design system token references
Decisions Log: ten significant decisions with alternatives, rationale, trade-offs, dates, and decision-makers
Artefact note: The content model workbook is available for download. Eleven sheets covering the full specification. Reusable as a template for real engagements by clearing Aldermere-specific data and keeping the structure.
